Biochar has been known for many years as a soil enhancer. It contains highly porous, high carbon content material similar to the type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil found in the Amazon Basin known as Terra Preta. Terra Preta has very high charcoal content and is made from a mixture of charcoal, bone, and manure. Biochar is created by the pyrolysis of biomass, which generally involves heating and/or burning of organic matter, in a reduced oxygen environment, at a predetermined rate. Such heating and/or burning is stopped when the matter reaches a charcoal like stage. The highly porous material of biochar is perfectly suited to host beneficial microbes, retain nutrients, hold water, and act as a delivery system for a range of beneficial compounds suited to specific applications.
During the production of biochar, large portions of biochar fines or dust particles are created. Along with the loss of useful product, these dust particles can be harmful for biochar manufacturing and agricultural distribution equipment. Due to the equipment not being equipped to handle the dust and fine remnants of the biochar, the dust and fine particles have the potential to clog and damage the manufacturing and distribution equipment. The various particle size distribution found during biochar manufacturing leads to distribution problems with agricultural equipment and causes the necessity of sizing equipment and costly capital expenditure. The light density of the biochar dust particles also makes mixing of growth enhancers such as fertilizers or microbes difficult as it allows for settling, separation, and distribution problems.
Given the known benefits of biochar, a need remains for a method to create a biochar solution that minimizes the complications of biochar dust or fine remnants to create a biochar soil enhancer with consistent viscosity and physical/chemical properties that can be uniformly distributed and applied in a variety of ways in large and small scale applications to have the highest positive impact on soils.